On Wed, Jul 11, 2012 at 2:30 PM, Internationalization Core Working
Group Issue Tracker <sysbot+tracker@w3.org> wrote:
> I18N-ISSUE-163: Flexbox specification needs examples using different writing modes [CSS3-flexbox]
>
> http://www.w3.org/International/track/issues/163
>
> Raised by: Norbert Lindenberg
> On product: CSS3-flexbox
>
> The biggest internationalization issue in the Flexbox specification appears to be handling of the different writing directions used for different languages. The specification is clearly designed to support this; directions are specified abstractly in terms of the start and end, before and after directions of the current writing mode. I didn't see any issues with this in the normative text.
>
> The examples, however, all seem to assume a left-to-right lines, top-to-bottom blocks writing mode. Since many readers won't be familiar with other writing modes, it would be helpful to have some examples showing the effect of given settings in other writing modes. In particular, example 5 should show the rendering of content with the different flex-flow settings at least with top-to-bottom lines, right-to-left blocks, maybe also in right-to-left lines, top-to-bottom blocks mode.
I previously had more writing-modes in Example 5, but it ended up
being more confusing than it was worth. We changed the examples to
all be English writing-modes so that we could illustrate the keywords
without requiring additional mental gymnastics.
Instead, we added a note immediately following the example talking
about other writing modes and their effect on flexbox directions.
We've also just now extended that note to have a visual example
comparing English to Japanese with the same flex-flow value.
> Comments should be phrased first in abstract terms, as in the comment for the second code snippet in that example, not in concrete terms, as in the third code snippet. Example 12 should be changed to not equate "vertical flex container" with "flex-flow: column".
We've just removed Example 12 entirely. It was redundant now that we
have the much better diagram immediately above it, and it wasn't a
very good example to start with.
~TJ